OT pour les Francaise: 3G pay-as-you-go in France?

[David Bovill]

I'd like to know as well. A couple of related things to test out:

   1. You should be able to put a normal mobile phone SIM into the USB stick
   with a data-plan.
   2. Vodafone are abolishing roaming charges in June
   3. AFAIK (I've asked the Vodaphone tech department, but not tested) -
   there is no real speed difference between using a bluetooth-3G-mobile phone
   set up and a 3G USB stick?


2009/5/26 Ben Rubinstein <benr_mc at cogapp.com>

> I'm abusing the list to contact some of our French correspondents.
>  Apologies to everyone else... and apologies to French speakers for my
> appalling Franglaise.
>
> I'm wondering whether it's possible to get hold of 3G data stick - or the
> SIM to go into one - for use in France, on a "pay-as-you-go" basis, rather
> than a long term contract.  In the UK, these 3G USB data modems, initially
> only available on quite long contracts with substantial monthly
> subscription, then became available under pay-as-you-go for about £100 (then
> about €130) and have since been dropping repeatedly so that you can now get
> one for about €25.
>
> Theoretically the ones I have should work in France, but paying a very high
> premium over the domestica data rate - in practise I've never been able to
> make them work at all.  So I'm wondering about the possibility of getting a
> French one to use while I'm in France - but I'm there often enough/long
> enough to justify doing so on a contract.
>
> I know that the mobile/cellular telephony market works very differently in
> different countries; are pay-as-you SIM cards (with 3G data access) or modem
> sticks available?  And are they truly pay-as-you-go, or (as seems to be the
> case in the US) somewhat lightweight contracts, where you have to top up by
> a minimum amount every few months otherwise it stops working altogether?